Things to Merlin – Transfer selected todos to Merlin on another mac
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 3. December 2012
We have posted information for transferring activities from Merlin to Things and todos from Things to Merlin. Mentioned approaches require both applications (Merlin and Things) to be installed on the same mac.
But… how to proceed if you want to transfer your data to another Mac where you may have installed Merlin, or when wanting to forward to a PM using Merlin? By a similar approach.
Just use another AppleScript we specifically wrote, which reads the selected todos from Things and writes in a Merlin XML file, which you can open in Merlin by drag&drop. For an easy file transfer, the script creates an email message and attaches the Merlin file. Cool, isn’t?
Installation:
- Just download the applescript
- Expand the zip archive
- Install the contained AppleScripts into the ‘Things Scripts’ directory
/Users/[your user name]/Library/Containers/com.culturedcode.things/Data/Library/Application Support/Cultured Code/Things Scripts/
- Restart your Things
Preparation:
- Work in Things. Create todos in Things and name them. Add on those todos, if required, due dates, tags, notes and may click the todos to define that they are completed
Workflow:
- Start your Things and view your todos
- Select the todos to be transferred
- Call the script “Things > Mail > Merlin” from the scripts menu of Things
- Enter the email address of the recipient in the mail message which is automatically created in Mail.app and contains a Merlin-XML file
- Send the mail message.
- As the recipient of this mail… Drag the XML file as displayed in the email message onto the activities area of an opened Merlin project.
Result:
- The todos will be inserted as activities in the Merlin project.
Tags: Applescript, Mail, Things, Transfer
Applescript – MS Excel to Merlin
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 1. October 2012
Can I import a selected range of cell from an MS EXCEL sheet into Merlin as tasks?
Merlin can import various file formats. For a complete list please check related topic in Merlin online help.
The official way to import MS EXCEL documents is to save them as csv files, and to open the csv file in Merlin in a second step.
- So you select in MS EXCEL File > Save as… > Comma Separated Values (.csv)
- You drag the csv text file to Merlin’s project listing and
- map the fields of the csv files to Merlin columns.
- Merlin will then import the file into the existing project.
To quicken things however, we have created a small Applescript sample, which handles the current MS EXCEL selection, goes through its rows and enters them as tasks into an existing Merlin project.
If interested, feel free to download, use or modify as you like. (more…)
Tags: Applescript, CSV, MS Excel
Applescript – MS Word to Merlin
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 12. September 2012
Can I import a selected list of activities from a MS Word document into Merlin as tasks?
Merlin can import various file formats. For a complete list please check related topic in Merlin online help.
MS Word documents are most commonly used for long texts and maybe project or task scope description. Lists are usually recorded in MS Excel, GTD applications, or even mindmapping software. To import tasks out of an MS Word document, you should export it into a compatible format.
- So you select in MS Word File > Save as… > Plain Text
- MS Word prompts for the desired formatting and encoding
- You save the file
- You drag the plain text file to Merlin’s project listing and
- map the field in the plain text to Merlin’s <title> column.
- Merlin will then import the list into the existing project.
To quicken things however, we have created a small Applescript sample, which handles the current MS Word selection, goes through its paragraphs and enters them as tasks into an existing Merlin project.
If interested, feel free to download, use or modify as you like. (more…)
Tags: Applescript, Merlin, MS Word
Applescript – elapsed duration in human friendly time units
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 29. May 2012
When planing and managing your projects with Merlin for Mac OS X you have 4 main windows: Activities, Resources, Netplan, Utilization.
Depending on the view you have selected, the main area offers you different details and information about your project. You can view and in certain cases modify the main outline of your project, adding activities, groups and milestones. Furthermore, this area also allows you to work interactively with the Gantt chart, Netplan and resource utilization.
Per default the label in the Gantt bar show the expected duration in working times. So it may show 2 days for example for a task starting Friday and ending Monday if weekend is defined to be workfree time.
If you want the label in the Gantt to show the real time elapsed, you may do so. Just go to View > Show View Options > Styles
Click into the label you want to edit and select “expected elapsed duration” for its content.
This of course would then show the duration in e-units. What to do if you don’t want those edays, emonths, eweeks to be shown? You may use attached script sample created in AppleScript.
It goes throught all activities of the top most opened project, checks for the expected elapsed duration of the task, and writes it in the subtitle field in human friendly units. If you enable the display of “subtitle” for the label, you are set.
Note: The script cannot create a live connection between the columns “subtitle” and “expected elapsed duration”. That is, before printing your project, make sure you call the script again Gantt to actualize outputted data. (more…)
Tags: Applescript, Duration, elapsed, Gantt, Styles, View
Applescript – Split activity in completed and remaining sub tasks
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 14. May 2012
When managing a project with Merlin you create your tasks and assign them to your resources. As your resources work on their task, you as a PM update your project by entering the actual values. That means, you enter the percentage of the completed work and the actual start date. If updating the tasks in absolute mode, you can enter the actual work or remaining work and duration.
Next time the resource works on the task, and reports its progress to update the data, you enter the new ‘% complete’ and if updating the tasks in absolute mode, the amount of actual work and remaining work so far.
Some users however would like to be able to pause the works on a task, to plan the remaining work sometime later on. This is also a good idea, if wanting to vary the utilization of a resource on a task in time. So to do so in Merlin, you would need to create two tasks. One for the first part of the works on the task, and a second for the remaining.
To quicken this procedure, we wrote an applescript sample which requires Merlin 2.8.4, and creates the two sub-activities based on the planned and actual values of the task in progress.
If interested, feel free to download, use or modify as you like. (more…)
Tags: Applescript, Completed, Merlin, Progress, Split
Applescript – Evernote to Merlin
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 17. April 2012
Merlin project management software integrates easily with lots of other Mac and Windows applications. For some applications you need to export/import files, with others you simply sync from Merlin. If you use Evernote to record your notes and want to transfer them to Merlin, you may now do so, by the use of the following script sample created in AppleScript.
It reacts on the Evernote selection and transfers selected notes to Merlin. Just select the notes you want to transfer in Evernote, call the script and see selected notes transferred in the top most opened Merlin project as file elements. Those elements can be then viewed even without connection to the Evernote account or the Evernote app on your Mac and are now part of your project.
Download: Evernote > Merlin AppleScript sample
Update on Jan 16th, 2013: Activated an alert informing about the inserted elements. Saved the AppleScript application as Applescript to avoid issues with Lion and Mountain Lion Gatekeeper.
Tags: Applescript, Elements, Evernote, Note
Applescript – Merlin’s script folder
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 27. March 2012
When using Merlin to manage and plan your projects on Mac OS X you can enhance its functions by AppleScript. We have posted various AppleScript samples in this blog. Feel free to download, use but also modify any way you think appropriate.
Some notes on this:
- To place a new AppleScript in Merlin’s script folder just drag your Applescript in the folder Merlin opens over File > Send To > Open Scripts Folder
- For new scripts to be listed under File > Send To, you need to re-start Merlin.
- If editing a script located in the scripts folder, you need to re-start Merlin, before your newly saved version of the script is available over the Send To sub menu.
- If looking for the path of Merlin’s script folder, by a cmd+click on its title row…
…you will see it placed under: Your Mac > Your hard disk > Users > Your User Name > Library > Application Support > Merlin > SendToMenu - If looking for it over the Finder and checking the contents of your home directory, don’t be surprised not seeing the “Library” folder. This is a feature of Lion, according to which the “Library” folder is an invisible folder.
Tags: Applescript, Lion, Scripts Folder
Applescript – Access elements
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 3. February 2012
This is a small “how to” showing how to access elements in Merlin projects over Applescript.
If you want to access all elements of a currently opened Merlin project:
tell application "Merlin"
set proj to root project of document 1
set myElements to deep elements of proj
repeat with aObj in myElements
get aObj
end repeat
end tell
If you want to access elements of the currently selected activity rows:
tell application "Merlin"
set myselection to selected object of main window of document 1 as list
repeat with aObj in myselection
get element of aObj as list
--to iterate in them
repeat with anElement in element of aObj as list
display dialog title of aObj & ": " & title of anElement
end repeat
end repeat
end tell
elements of… asks for the elements attached on the object itself. While deep elements of… asks also for elements attached in sub objects as well.
Tags: Applescript, Elements
Applescript – Remove estimation flag for selected tasks
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 1. September 2011
The default value for work in new activities can be defined in the project settings of a Merlin project. Just call File > Project Settings… > General > Default Work and see ’1 day ?’
The question mark stands for “estimated” and will be visualized in the inspector as a check mark.
In the Gantt you see those question marks wherever there are tasks with estimated work entries…
We have been asked in support, how to quickly remove this “estimated” flag on more than one tasks of a project at once. The answer we can give here is, try an applescript. You simply need to select all tasks in question, read the planned work information in an applescript loop, check if it is “estimated” and disable this option if necessary.
Enjoy 
tell application "Merlin" activate set myselection to selected object of main window of document 1 as list (more...)
Tags: Applescript
Applescript – Visualise exceptions as activities
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 1. June 2011
In Merlin you can enter exceptions for holidays or exceptional working days in the working time inspector. Exceptions applying for the complete project should be entered in the project calendar. Those affecting only a specific resource, should be entered in its calendar.
From time to time we get asked in support how one could visualize those exceptions in the Gantt. Merlin shows non working days in grey, but it has no explicit function for showing which grey date ranges belong to which exception.
To solve this, we wrote a small applescript creating activities out of the defined exceptions of a resource. To test it, just check the following script:
(* Scripting with Merlin 2 You may incorporate this ProjectWizards sample code into your program(s) without restriction. This ProjectWizards sample code has been provided "AS IS" and the responsibility for its operation is yours. You are not permitted to redistribute this ProjectWizards sample code as "ProjectWizards sample code" after having made changes. If you're going to redistribute the code, we require that you make it clear that the code was descended from ProjectWizards sample code, but that you've made changes. Copyright ©2011 ProjectWizards, Melle, Germany. All rights reserved. *) (* Name: Creates activities for visualation of the exceptions of a selected resource (German: Erstellt Vorgänge für die Visualisierung der Ausnahmen im Ressourcenkalender einer ausgewählten Ressource) Author: Vicky Stamatopoulou for ProjectWizards, Copyright 2011 Info: The script prompts for the name of resource, creates the activities, handles title of exception, start & end dates, and working mode Date: June 1st 2011 *)
Tags: Applescript, Exceptions, working time inspector
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